Promoting the Gay Agenda

It is no secret that gay activists are promoting the homosexual agenda in schools, with the idea that a transformation of students' attitudes about the behavior will lead not only to its acceptance in our society, but perhaps even an increase in the number of practicing homosexuals. Activists have developed "marketing" strategies to accomplish their aims, such as "conversion." Paul Rondeau, a doctoral student at Regent University, explained that one method to "convert" children into accepting the gay lifestyle is to wear society down from constant barrages "to the point where just accepting homosexuality is much less of a burden than continuing to fight it Whoever captures the kids owns the future."

This emerging presence of homosexual propaganda in schools may owe its origin to the efforts of Marshall Kirk and Erastes Pill, two gay activists who concocted an elaborate homosexual spin campaign in 1987 with the publication of their piece, "The Overhauling of Straight America." The article first appeared in the November 1987 issue of The Guide, a magazine of "Gay Travel, Entertainment, Politics, and Sex." It makes clear the authors' purposes: to systematically normalize the homosexual culture and demonize any who obstruct such efforts. The first step, they said, is to desensitize the public-to get the public to "view homosexuality with indifference instead of with keen emotion."

The authors told the gay community that if it could simply condition society to "shrug [its] shoulders" with indifference about homosexuality, "your battle for legal and social rights is virtually won." To accomplish this, the authors proposed a "large-scale media campaign" to "change the image of gays in America," consisting of six elements.

1) "Talk about gays and gayness as loudly and as often as possible." The theory is that sufficient exposure will make the behavior look normal. And the authors suggested methods for overcoming objections of conservative churches. There are only two ways, they said "to confound the homophobia of true believers." The first is to "use talk to muddy the moral waters. This means publicizing support for gays by more moderate churches, raising theological objections of our own about conservative interpretations of biblical teachings, and exposing hatred and inconsistency." Sound familiar? The second way is to "undermine the moral authority of homophobic churches by portraying them as antiquated backwaters."

2) "Portray gays as victims, not as aggressive challengers." The authors say, "In any campaign to win over the public, gays must be cast as victims in need of protection so that straights will be included by reflex to assume the role of protector" Does the advent of "safe zones" and "safe schools" ring a bell? One school in Minnesota has fifty classrooms that have been designated as "safe zones" (physically marked with pink triangles), meaning that students who have questions about their sexuality can talk to the teachers in those rooms "safely "-without risk that the teachers will criticize homosexuality. The teacher can then refer the students for outside counseling with a pro-homosexual consultant or to a gay activist group. Mostly this is done without parental involvement, much less consent.

3) "Give protectors a just cause." The authors acknowledge that homosexuals won't make much headway by demanding "direct support for homosexual practices." Instead, they should "take anti-discrimination" as their theme. The idea is to turn the tables on heterosexual society-making those who oppose them look like hardened bigots.

4) "Make gays look good. To offset the increasingly bad press that these times have brought to homosexual men and women, the campaign should paint gays as superior pillars of society

The honor roll of prominent gay or bisexual men and women is truly eye-popping. From Socrates to Shakespeare, from Alexander the Great to Alexander Hamilton " Now you know another reason that many of our public school teachings on these men have been re-oriented, so to speak.

5) "Make the victimizers look bad." Listen to this: "At a later stage of the media campaign for gay rights-long after other gay ads have become commonplace-it will be time to get tough with remaining opponents. To be blunt, they must be vilified Our goal here is twofold. First, we seek to replace the mainstream's self-righteous pride about its homophobia with shame and guilt. Second, we intend to make the anti-gays look so nasty that average Americans will want to dissociate themselves from such types." Now, get this further advice as to how to implement this strategy. "The public should be shown images of ranting homophobes whose secondary traits and beliefs disgust middle America. These images might include: the Ku Klux Klan demanding that gays be burned alive or castrated; bigoted southern ministers drooling with hysterical hatred to a degree that looks both comical and deranged; menacing punks, thugs, and convicts speaking coolly about the 'fags' they have killed or would like to kill; a tour of Nazi concentration camps where homosexuals were tortured and gassed."

If the authors are to be evaluated on the success of their campaign, they deserve exceedingly high marks. The California legislature recently enacted the California Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act, which requires the state education curriculum to be modified to enable students to acknowledge homosexual, lesbian, "transgender," and bisexual historical figures and events. Here again, the pretense is to prevent violence, but the actual purpose is, inevitably, indoctrination. Other states, such as Florida and New York, are considering similar bills, both called the "Dignity for All Students Act."

Indeed, homosexual activists have made great strides in public schools. One of the ways they are forcing their agenda into schools is through so-called anti-harassment or anti-bullying policies, explored below. Through this vehicle and others, their goal is not simply to end the mistreatment of gays or to prevent bullying, but to force heterosexual society to accept their behavior as normal-as just another equally valid lifestyle.

Some states are officially supporting this agenda. In West Virginia, the attorney general's office organized the Civil Rights Team Project to squash school bullies, but some believe that it is nothing more than a veiled program to advance the homosexual cause. Kevin McCoy, president of the West Virginia Family Foundation, points to the Civil Rights Team Project's training manual as proof. According to McCoy, the manual recommends that teachers "wear a 'LesBiGay positive' button or a T-shirt with a'Straight, but not Narrow' slogan or a pink triangle; tell students not to assume all their classmates are heterosexual, but acknowledge that some students are homosexual and bisexual; avoid using traditional terms such as boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, or husband, and broaden their language to include 'partner, lover, significant other.' Teachers are also advised to use the phrase 'permanent relationship' instead of 'marriage;' identify the contributions of homosexuals in history, literature, art, science, and religion and expand libraries to include books related to sexual diversity." Advocates of the program nevertheless deny that it seeks to promote the gay agenda-apparently hoping that the covering language of "civil rights" will give them a free pass from closer scrutiny, pigeonholing opponents as "anti-civil rights."

Effective January 1, 2001, California enacted two bills, AB1785 and AB 1931, that opponents say will expose students to "information and activities designed to influence [their] views about human sexuality and gender identity, including areas of homosexuality, bisexuality, transvestitism, transsexuality, and other alternative lifestyles." AB 1785 encourages the adoption of curricula to promote "tolerance" education in public schools at every grade level, beginning with kindergarten. Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation described the measure as "a dagger aimed at the innocence of our children," that would "isolate and target those who do not agree with the homosexual lifestyle." AB 1931 provides for taxpayer-funded grants to take children on field trips where they can learn about "diversity" and "tolerance." Included in "diversity" is the category of "sexual orientation." Ultimately, the aim of the bills is clearly values-based: to inculcate in children the notion that homosexual behavior is normal and morally acceptable. In response, pro-family groups developed "optout" forms that would allow parents to remove their children from objectionable courses. California law already permits the use of such forms for sex education classes, but the new opt-out form is broader and covers all other courses the parents might find objectionable.

Nevertheless, under these laws and subsequent California legislation and administrative guidelines, California public school students are often introduced to the gay lifestyle while their teachers are encouraged to take "tolerance" training. Karen Holgate of the Capitol Resource Institute describes one school district that is using a course called Preventing Prejudice, which features lessons on "coming out" and "what is a boy/girl?" Holgate said, "This whole movement is not about tolerance. It's about redirecting the hate towards anyone who does not agree that homosexuality is a normal, positive and healthy lifestyle."

Speaking of normal lifestyles, in 2000 the gay activist group GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network) and the Massachusetts Education Department co-hosted a TeachOUT at Tufts University in Boston. At the conference the organizers taught public school teachers how to incorporate positive messages about homosexuality into the curriculum. But more controversial were the instructions to children as young as fourteen on various homosexual practices, including "fisting:" This outrage led to two Department of Education instructors being fired, but that didn't deter GLSEN from planning another TeachOUT shortly thereafter.

Another indoctrination technique is the use of pro-homosexual videos in elementary and middle schools. Debra Chasnoff and Helen S. Cohen produced a three-part series entitled

"Respect for All." The first video, "That's a Family," reportedly exposes student viewers to multiple types of families, including "divorced, single parent, adoptive, multiracial, multigenerational, and stepfamilies, and intertwining gay and lesbian families." Chasnoff and Cohen are optimistic that the "impact of this project will be tremendous." They say, in a 1999 fundraising letter, "Giving elementary school students the opportunity to hear the word 'gay' and 'lesbian' described in a matter-of-fact way by their peers, and experience gay and lesbian families in the context of... [a] diverse group of other families, could have a profound effect on their values and behavior for the rest of their lives." Another word for this is propaganda, and one wonders why the public schools should be peddling it.

Educators are certainly lining up to implement the gay-indoctrination agenda. A middle school in Elk Grove, California, sponsored a pro-homosexuality event involving several singleperson skits. The subjects included the rape of a girl and a gay football player who emphasized that he was "born" that way. Parents were not notified of the event and one related that his son had been told at school, "It's okay if you don't like girls, because that means you're gay."

At Pleasant Valley Elementary School and San Ramon Elementary School in Novato, California, similar activities took place. Parents were outraged that their second through sixth grade students were being subjected to plays with pro-homosexual themes without their knowledge. The plays were called "Cootie Shots: Theatrical Inoculations Against Bigotry." In one of the skits a boy was wearing a dress and discussing cross-dressing. In another, dealing with homosexuality, a female character became involved with a princess instead of a prince.

Sometimes, gay activists, among themselves at least, don't conceal their agenda to indoctrinate students with the goal of transforming society. Nor do they hide their hostility toward opposing viewpoints. At a GLSEN convention in October 1999 in Atlanta, speakers underscored their plan. Deanna Duby of the National Education Association, speaking at the convention, said, "The fear of the religious right is that the schools of today are the governments of tomorrow. And you know what? They're right." Speaker James Anderson, GLSEN's communications director, added, "We're going to raise a generation of kids who don't believe [the claims of] the religious right."

GLSEN should be proud of its progress. Many schools have adopted the "safe school" concept GLSEN fosters, meaning that schools are only safe if students who disapprove of homosexuality are denied their free speech on that issue. Anyone voicing an opinion against homosexuality, no matter how compassionately framed, is perpetrating "hate." One junior named Jonathan at a Vermont high school challenged his teacher's assertion that homosexuality was genetic. The teacher's response was, "What's wrong, Jon, are you homophobic? Did you know that a lot of people who are afraid of gay people are actually gay themselves?"

GLSEN has come a long way in just the last few years. With a $3.5 million budget, it has become a formidable force in public schools, striving to actualize its agenda as laid out in its publication, Institutionalized Heterosexism in Our Schools: A Guide to Understanding and Undoing It. This document reveals that the homosexual lobby is becoming bolder. Heterosexism is defined as "the belief that heterosexuality is 'normal,' and that homosexuality is 'sick' or 'immoral."' The term, it says, is not meant to replace "homophobia." "Heterosexism" is a more expansive word that doesn't connote an equal level of hatred, and can even encompass "seemingly innocent thoughts and behavior based on the belief that heterosexuality is the norm." These seeds have taken root, as shown by an incident at a high school in Arcata, California, where children were made to sit in a circle and respond to the question: "Do you believe homosexuality is a sin and therefore wrong?" Think about that for a minute: the public schools that so assiduously try to erect a separation between school and religion are nevertheless willing to invoke religion, in essence-the idea of "sin"-in order to debunk religious beliefs as ignorant or intolerant or wrongly understood by traditional believers. Certainly no values instruction there!

Another example of gay tolerance on display occurred at Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In 2002 the school celebrated "2002 Diversity Week," which included a number of activities, such as an all-school assembly with student speeches and panel discussions on such topics as "Homosexuality and Religion." The school required students to submit the text of their speeches to the administration for approval. When student Betsy Hansen submitted her speech, school officials removed all remarks critical of homosexuality. Betsy was also forbidden to articulate her Roman Catholic view on homosexuality during the panel discussion-even though the panel was supposed to talk about homosexuality and religion. Officials informed her that her "negative" message would conflict with and "water down" the "positive" religious message they were trying to convey-that religion and homosexual behavior are compatible and that homosexual behavior is neither sinful nor immoral. Thus we have a public school instructing a Christian student about what her religion really means-as opposed to what she might think it means or what her parents or her pastor or priest might tell her. This is more than indoctrination; it is the use of a public school to perpetuate falsehood.

Yet another revolting example of such propaganda and "tolerance"-some readers might want to skip the paragraph that follows-occurred in Newton South High School in Newton, Massachusetts in 2001. A teacher there told the Boston Globe that he had subtly introduced "bisexual, gay, lesbian, and transgendered" subjects in class. He distributed the novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky and instructed the class to write an essay on it. The book features such subjects as bestiality (between boy and dog), man-boy sex, anal sex between boys, male masturbation, and female masturbation using a hot dog. When a parent objected, school officials treated her as an ignorant pest.